Grey's Anatomy Recap: Something's Gotta Give

Cristina's decision to quit her promising surgical career rocked the hospital on this week's Grey's Anatomy.

While confusion and sorrow filled the halls of Seattle Grace-Mercy West, Derek was downright mad – not at Cristina, but Teddy, whom he felt put too much pressure on Cristina by leaving her in charge of last week's complication-riddled lung-transplant patient.

But Teddy had more pressing matters to deal with when a car-crash victim arrived on a gurney, and she and Owen were charged with saving his life.

The rumor quickly spread that the VIP patient was U2's frontman Bono, but the heavy security detail turned out to be for a peace-loving politician from the Middle East. When it was discovered that the dying man not only had a tear in his heart but a cerebral aneurysm, Derek was also recruited for the case, leading to a double surgery and a war of words in the OR.

Teddy defended herself against Derek, saying that, as Cristina's mentor, she had done everything she could to helpher. While Der did finally apologize, he remained adamant that a plan to ambush Cristina at her housewarming party that night was a bad idea. As he reminded Meredith, when she'd tried to reason with him after his own temporary leave, he'd taken a bat to her engagement ring.

With the docs struggling to deal with Cristina's exit, she chose just not to deal at all. Instead, she blasted any thoughts from her head with loud music and danced with abandon around her apartment. And when Callie, who is still reeling from the Arizona break-up, stopped by to check on her and casually mentioned wanting haircut, Cristina promptly chopped a few locks from Callie's head. Yikes!

Then the two women, united by anxiety over their respective life shake-ups, headed to the mall to shop away their troubles. Cristina bought furniture, while Callie bought herself a sassy new blue-streaked hairstyle.

Meanwhile, an insecure Avery worried that no attendings wanted to work with him, even more so after he got the opportunity to be on Bailey's service, only to have the patient die on the operating table. Bailey had actually been impressed with the young surgeon's skills, though by the time she reported that to the Chief, Avery was already drowning his sorrows in booze and beating the living daylights out of Alex for putting the moves on April.

True, Alex had once again been a jerk, but he'd been through the ringer as well. The new pediatrics doc (Peter MacNicol) had stolen his unconventional idea to use a ping pong ball to help save a baby's liver. (Yes, a ping pong ball.) But it was only when Alex opened up to Mer that we learned what was really eating at him: His brother, like his mom, had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and tried to kill their sister, leaving Alex to return to Iowa, where he'd had to commit his brother to a mental hospital.